Triple Scoop
by SuperheroGirlX
Summary: The sequel to What We Don't See. The XMen kids go out for ice cream, but their cool time gets uncomfortably hot when their triple date gets crashed.
1. Chapter 1

Summary: Sequel to _What We Don't See_. Picks up right where that one left off. The X-Men kids go out for ice cream, but their cool time gets uncomfortably hot when their triple date gets crashed.

Disclaimer: Stan Lee, thanks for the use of your characters! And thanks to Fox for making the movies, too. Obviously, neither of them are me, so on with the _fan_fiction.

**Triple Scoop**

"Well it's about time," Piotr breathed when he and Kitty broke apart.

The infirmary's beeping machinery was drowned out by their heavy breathing. In the dim light of the monitors' greenish glow, Kitty saw Pete actually smirk.

Kitty wrinkled her nose at him. "Ok, so it took me a while. You could have given me a hint or something."

"I thought almost pummeling Bobby was a pretty big one."

"Oh...Well, yeah, I guess." Kitty honestly couldn't believe she hadn't noticed sooner that Piotr had been interested in her. It wasn't until just this morning that she had seriously looked away from Bobby and seen that Pete had been there the whole time. Now, after their first kiss, in the deserted infirmary, Pete seemed like the only one in Kitty's life.

That was a dangerous thing to think, Kitty knew. She had let herself think that about Bobby for the longest time and she didn't want to make that mistake twice. It was easy to miss out on things that way.

"Kitty?" Piotr asked, not for the first time. She looked up at him. "You ok?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. But _you_," she poked him playfully in the chest, "should be resting."

Pete frowned at her. "I'm far from tired."

Kitty frowned right back and said threateningly, "Well if you don't get some sleep today, we won't be able to go out for ice cream tomorrow with Jimmy."

Pete perked up. "Ice cream?"

"Well Logan took Storm and it sounded like fun. Do you not want to take me?"

Pete kissed her again and then pushed her toward the door. "Go away and let me get some rest then."

xxx

Kitty needed to remind herself not to shut out the world for a guy again, so she grabbed a notebook and a pencil from her room and ventured out into the backyard. For the second time in as many days, Kitty found herself sitting in the lush, well-manicured grass in front of Jean, Scott, and Xavier's monuments with a pencil in hand, poised to draw.

Yesterday, drawing these three stones had given Kitty the inspiration she needed to finally let go of her crush on Bobby and notice that Piotr had developed one on her. Today, she hoped to remind herself to keep her eyes open, even in the face of her mounting interest in Piotr. Unlike yesterday, when Kitty had drawn only the three headstones in a blank space, today she tried to capture everything. She drew the three headstones, of course, but she also drew the grass, and the flowers and bushes beyond them. She tried to include everything. When she was done, she held it at arm's length and squinted at it. Kitty Pryde would never be mistaken for an artist, but she had to admit it wasn't bad. She at least seemed to have captured everything - if not in the best detail. Kitty carefully folded the drawing and slipped it in her back pocket.

The school grounds were quiet now and it was well past sunset. Students had trickled back inside to eat and do the homework they had put off during the day. Kitty liked the quietness of the moment, softly illuminated by ground lights surrounding the monuments. In the strangely lit courtyard, the professor's little constant flame made the shadows dance. Kitty wished she could have drawn _that_. Piotr could and he might, if Kitty asked him to.

Her silence was interrupted not by something loud - it was impossible to be loud in this couryard, surrounded by a sadness that seemed to have seeped into the very atmosphere around the monuments - but by someone silent. Rogue wordlessly stepped into place on Kitty's left and for a while the two just stared at the graves.

"It's strange," Rogue said from seemingly very far away. "I was there when Jean died..."

Kitty understood her to mean _the first time _Jean died. Rogue, like Logan and perhaps for his benefit, made very clear distinctions between Jean's two personalities. When she used Jean's name, she was referring to the Jean Grey who had been their teacher; the Jean Grey who had been an X-Man. _Jean_ was the one who had died at Alkali Lake and that was the death Rogue was referring to.

"Scott and the professor were there too. That was the last time I saw all three of them together. And then we came home without Jean and everything was different. We became X-Men, Scott was a mess, John was gone..." Rogue trailed off for a while.

Kitty had never really known John all that well. She remembered him as sort of a class clown, a little wild sometimes, but not the kind of kid she ever imagined as Magneto's right hand man. It was easier for her to think of him as the maniacal pyro that tried to fry Bobby at Alcatraz. Rogue apparently had a harder time seeing that in her former friend.

"I guess you can't tell with some people," Rogue went on. "I mean, who would have thought _Jean_ would turn into the Phoenix and join the Brotherhood?"

Kitty nodded absent-mindedly and wondered if Rogue was really talking about Jean or if she was thinking about Pyro. Either way, Kitty thought she would use this friendly, if somewhat depressing moment, to build a better friendship with Rogue. "Hey, do you and Bobby want to go out with me and Pete and Jimmy tomorrow?"

Rogue was surprised by the question and turned her head to look at her former rival. She seemed to decide that Kitty was being sincere and then she raised an eyebrow and smirked. "You and Pete, huh?"

---

A/N: Ok, as of this posting, I'm not done with the final chapter, but I figure I can finish it in four days, which would give me a time frame of a chapter a day. I'm writing instead of doing my homework, but just in case I get something I can't put off, sorry in advance for any delay on chapter four. And Shadowdancer9, I promise not to "hold it hostage" this time! Thanks for reading!

--X


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Stan Lee, thanks for the use of your characters! And thanks to Fox for making the movies, too. Obviously, neither of them are me, so on with the _fan_fiction.

**Triple Scoop**

Kitty, Rogue, and Jubilee had finally worked out a rhythm to move around eachother as they got ready. It had taken some bumping into eachother and fighting for the mirror before the three girls had stopped and started over. While Jubilee applied her makeup with her little compact mirror, Kitty used the vanity mirror to pull her hair into a sleek ponytail and Rogue looked through her closet for something comfortably casual to wear. When Kitty finished her hair, she dressed quickly in her favorite pair of white capris and a purple tanktop that showed off her Danger Room-toned arms. Rogue, she noticed, was also wearing a tanktop with a knee-length jean skirt.

"Marie, makeup?" Jubilee asked, tossing the compact to Rogue.

Jubilee was more than a little excited for this triple date. Jimmy had finally asked her out on an official date after at least a month of flirting back and forth. Before that time, Jimmy's sole focus had been on Kitty, so Jubilee's crush on him had gone largely unnoticed by the young mutant. Luckily he, like Kitty, had realized his mistake and now that everyone had figured out their relationships, the six teens were going out together to celebrate the end of the confusion and the beginning of something undoubtedly better.

It sort of amused Kitty that these two girls, who had eagerly helped her pick out her outfit, had both once hated her for stealing their guys' affections. Kitty blushed now as she thought about what a fool she'd been. Looking back on it she had been completely unrealistic in her hopes for Bobby. He was very much with Rogue, no matter what slight weakness had led him to Kitty. And Jimmy. Well Kitty really couldn't believe that she hadn't noticed Jimmy fawning over her. It was obvious in retrospect, but then things like that usually are.

"You done yet Kitty?" Jubilee asked politely, but slightly impatiently.

Kitty looked away from her reflection and nodded. "Yeah, I'm done. I'm gonna go see how the guys are doing."

She really just wanted to see Pete for a second alone before they left, so she left Rogue's room and headed to the male dorms on the other side of the mansion. She knocked softly on Piotr's door and heard him shuffling around inside. He opened the door a minute later and a smile lit his face when he saw her.

"Hi," Kitty whispered, her face turning red like it never had with Bobby.

Piotr moved aside to let her in and closed the door softly behind her. "Am I running late?"

Kitty shook her head and spun slowly to look at him. He was dressed in a clean black polo shirt and dark blue jeans. A white wife beater with fresh paint stains peeked out from under his bed in an obviously hurried attempt to hide it. Kitty raised an eyebrow at her new boyfriend and without her having to say a word, he caved.

"I'm painting something."

"Can I see?"

Pete shifted uncomfortably and muttered something about it not being finished, but Kitty stuck out her bottom lip in a pout and looked up at him with shamelessly begging eyes. The big artist sighed and steered her to the corner of his room. Turned toward the wall was a large easel with a canvas stretched over it. Kitty closed her eyes and breathed in. It smelled like wet paint. When she opened her eyes she was staring into a painting of a statue.

"It's a bird," Kitty said stupidly.

"It's a phoenix."

"Ohhh," Kitty breathed. Her hand instinctively went to her mouth and she was glad to be able to lean back against Piotr.

He rested his hands on her shoulders and explained, "It's going to be a memorial statue. Storm wants to put it in the middle of the main courtyard, but she wanted to keep it a secret until she talked it over with Logan and the team."

"Then it's a secret."

Piotr slid his hands down around her waist and whispered in her ear, "Thank you Kitty."

She turned her head to kiss him, then turned around in his grasp and looked up at him. Before she could say anything, there was another knock at his door. Then Kitty remembered that she was in a boy's room with the door closed, something that was not encouraged in the Xavier School. She had just managed to slip into the closet before the door burst open and Bobby and Jimmy strolled in.

"Hey Pete, ready to go?" Bobby asked.

"Yeah, we're supposed to be at the bottom of the stairs before the girls are finished getting ready so we can ooh and ahh at them when they come down," Jimmy said. He'd never been on a date before, so his courtship knowledge came mostly from tv and the sometimes stranger practices of mutant dating that he'd seen since he moved in.

Bobby ruffled Jimmy's well-combed hair. "It's just ice cream Jimmy, relax. But we still can't let them think we take longer to get ready than they do, so let's go big guy." And Bobby practically pushed Pete out of his room. Kitty let out a thankful sigh when they were gone and phased downstairs. The guys were coming down the stairs when she walked out of the living room. Pete looked slightly surprised, thinking he'd left her upstairs in his closet, but recovered himself quickly.

"You look nice," he complimented her, like it was his first time seeing her.

She beamed at him and returned the compliment. Bobby and Jimmy were trying not to laugh at the polite newness of Kitty and Piotr's relationship when someone cleared their throat on the stairs behind them. Bobby and Jimmy turned to see their dates descending and even though Jimmy had planned on oohing and ahhing and saying something smooth, he ended up being speechless.

Jubilation Lee, better known as Jubliee, had done a lot since Kitty left. She wore a yellow sundress and her straight black hair was pulled back into a curled ponytail with a few curled strands of hair hanging down the sides of her face. Big gold hoop earrings matched her gold choker necklace and assortment of gold rings. "I know it's just ice cream..." she said nervously.

Bobby nudged Jimmy, who stumbled up a step and managed to sputter, "Y-you look amazing."

Rogue laughed openly at this and stuck her arm through Jubilee's to drag her down the stairs. When they reached Jimmy, Rogue left her in front of him and continued on down the stairs to latch onto Bobby's arm instead. When they had waited a good three minutes without the younger couple having moved an inch, Rogue cleared her throat again and joked, "Hey, you know what'll be even more fun than this? Actually going out."

Both Jimmy and Jubilee blushed and followed the other four out the front door.

---

A/N: Still working on chapter 4. I'm hoping it'll be done in two days. Feel free to yell at me if it's not!

--X


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: Stan Lee, thanks for the use of your characters! And thanks to Fox for making the movies, too. Obviously, neither of them are me, so on with the _fan_fiction.

**Triple Scoop**

As soon as the group had made it off the property, they felt a few drops of rain fall and looked up nervously. The forcast hadn't called for rain, so none of them had thought to bring umbrellas. There was a little cloud above them that dissipated as soon as they saw it, just Storm's way of reminding them to behave. They all sighed with relief and continued on their walk. It was two blocks to the ice cream place and the six of them took up the whole sidewalk the whole way there. The two newer couples relied heavily on Rogue and Bobby for conversation that wasn't forced and movements that weren't awkward. Bobby and Rogue came through with easy, constant talk and relaxed poses, so the other four didn't have to deal with shy silences. By the time they reached the ice cream shop, everyone was relaxed and chatting together. Jimmy even told a joke that made Jubilee giggle.

The line for ice cream was long, which gave them plenty of time to decide what they wanted. Rogue and Bobby opted to share a chocolate malt and Bobby, being the expert on all things cold, turned to help the others decide.

"You can never go wrong with a shake. They have pretty good banana splits here too. And there's this brownie thing with chocolate ice cream, but it's got too much chocolate if you ask me."

"No one did," Rogue said playfully.

Bobby rolled his eyes at her, pecked her on the cheek, and continued, "They've got mint chocolate chip cookie dough here too."

"They combined them!" Rogue clarified like it was the greatest idea anyone had ever had.

"Hey, what's today?" Bobby asked.

"Sunday," Rogue answered.

"Well then they've got apple pie with your choice of ice cream too. It's a Sunday only deal."

"Oh, Bobby," Rogue hit him in the arm excitedly, "tell them about the cones."

"Oh right," he said. "They've got this deal here with the cones. You can get a waffle cone with any three flavors of ice cream for the two scoop price."

"Hey, we're almost up," Rogue said, drawing their attention back to the drastically shortened line.

"What do you want?" Jimmy asked Jubilee.

"I don't know. What do you want?"

Kitty and Piotr's conversation went much the same. Finally Jimmy suggested the banana split and Jubilee emphatically agreed. They ordered after Rogue and Bobby, leaving Kitty and Piotr to make a hurried final decision.

"Triple scoop?" Kitty asked Pete as they stepped up to the window. He nodded and they silently settled on a neapolitan cone: one scoop chocolate, one vanilla, and one strawberry. They were walking away with their various ice creams when Kitty heard a vaguely familiar voice cut through the air.

"Yeah, you wouldn't happen to have Baked Alaska here, would you?"

Baked Alaska was a type of rare dessert. A sponge cake filled with ice cream and then lit on fire, Kitty had only had Baked Alaska once in her life and it had been delicious. Something about the voice ordering it made her stop cold in her tracks, but made her terrified to turn around at the same time. She was glad to see that Piotr, Bobby, and Rogue had done the same. Jubilee cocked her head to the side, as if trying to place the voice. Only Jimmy was unaffected by it and only stopped when he realized that everyone else had.

"What's wrong?"

Jubilee was the first to turn around to see who it was and even then she could only stand and stare with her jaw hanging open.

"You don't?" the voice said loudly. "Sure you do! You've got ice cream in there, right? You just need a little..."

"NO!" Jubilee managed to shout, but too late.

"...fire," John Allerdyce finished before spreading a ring of flames around the building.

Bobby spun at Jubilee's outcry, but his move to ice the fire did nothing. "Pete, get Marie and Jimmy out of here!" Bobby shouted. The boy's power to cancel out the powers of those near him obviously didn't reach Pyro, but Bobby and the rest were affected.

Rogue's mouth hardened defiantly into a frown. "Bobby Drake, if you think for one second I'm going to _run away_ like some sort o-"

Piotr pushed Rogue and Jimmy behind him. "Stay there," he ordered.

Rogue was still obviously unhappy with being treated like she was helpless, but she kept quiet about it. At least Pete hadn't asked her to run. Kitty was amazed once again at his perceptiveness, but didn't have too much time to marvel at it. Pyro was advancing, both his flame throwers lit.

"What d'you want, John?" Bobby asked.

"Nice to see you too Iceman," John shot back sarcastically. His flames suddenly went out. He looked at his wrists, then back at their group, then took a step back. The flamethrowers spurted back to life. "So it is him? Good. Almost didn't recognize you with hair, kid."

"What d'you want, Pyro?" Bobby repeated.

"Nothing. Just your girlfriend and the kid."

Jubilee said something angrily in Chinese and Piotr added something calmly, but threatening in Russian. Kitty felt the need to chime in, so said in plain old English, "Go crawl under a rock, dickhead."

"Oh come on. If I take her off your hands, you can have Bobby all to yourself, Kitty," Pyro prodded.

Piotr took a step forward, but Kitty grabbed his arm to hold him back. "We said you can't have them, so get lost."

"Look, I just wanna figure out how to reverse the cure. You can have 'em back when I'm done with them."

"No," Jimmy whispered.

Jubilee flexed her fingers, but the sparks she wanted to shoot at their fire-loving foe wouldn't come. She had to settle for a verbal attack. "How _is_ Mr. Lehnsherr these days?"

"_Magneto_ will be fine as soon as I'm done here. Look," Pyro said reasonably, "you really don't have a choice. You've got the kid over there and I can just do this..." He spread a ring of fire around them. "See?"

"In a fair fight you wouldn't stand a chance," Kitty taunted. "Bobby kicked your butt last time, in case you forgot."

"If Bobby would just send the kid away, he could fight too, isn't that right Iceman? Tell me when you start melting, ok?"

"What happened to you John?" Rogue asked, stepping to the front of the group.

John rolled his eyes. "I'm trying to do you a favor, Rogue, and put you back the way you're supposed to be. NOW!"

Out of nowhere, someone shot through the flames, grabbed Jimmy, and sprinted away before the X-Men had time to react. Jubilee watched the man disappear back through the fire with Jimmy and then spun angrily to face Pyro. Her fingers sparkled with little fireworks.

"You have two seconds to bring him back," she said gravely.

John was clearly not worried. Jubilee didn't look particularly menacing in her yellow sundress, so John was shocked when sparks of light shot from her fingers at him and exploded all around him. He was knocked backward from the force and from shock.

Kitty didn't get to enjoy that sight though, because as soon as she had recovered from the surprise of a second attacker, she'd taken off after him. She was aware of Piotr thundering after her, because his metal form pounded the ground with every step. And then, suddenly, he powered down for no apparent reason.

"We're close," he told Kitty as he came up next to her. She tried to phase and found that she couldn't. They were close.

---

A/N: Any guesses on who Pyro's accomplice is? And I'm still hoping to finish chapter four. It won't be more than two days, I PROMISE! Thanks for reading!

--X


	4. Chapter 4

Teardrops and Roses: Thanks! Here's the answer!

Bobby's Icequeen: Yeah, I wanted to use Callisto, but SPOILER Storm killed her at the end of the third movie END OF SPOILER. And maybe I should have been more clear on this, but the guy didn't use powers to kidnap Jimmy. Read and see... And thanks for the reviews!

Disclaimer: Stan Lee, thanks for the use of your characters! And thanks to Fox for making the movies, too. Obviously, neither of them are me, so on with the _fan_fiction.

**Triple Scoop**

Kitty skidded to a stop and, next to her, Piotr did the same.

"I thought he was in jail," Pete said. Kitty had thought the same thing. Beast had actually assured them of it. The government nabbed this guy before Alcatraz.

"I am," Jamie Madrox said, one arm firmly around Jimmy's chest.

"Kitty!" Jimmy cried. He was understandably terrified of being taken away and experimented on again. Xavier's had promised him safety from that and Kitty was determined to keep that promise on behalf of the school.

Pete too. Pete would help. Kitty wasn't alone and couldn't make that mistake for a second with his large presence right next to her.

"Let him go," Pete said calmly. He was almost always calm, but there was an anger and purpose behind it now that made him seem indestructable, even in his human form.

Multiple Man obviously wasn't as impressed by Colossus as Kitty was. He visibly tightened his grip on Jimmy's arm, making Jimmy yell in pain. Kitty took a worried step forward and was pulled back just in time for a bullet to graze her right arm. While she had been distracted by Jimmy, Multiple had pulled out a gun. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem, since Kitty could phase through the bullets and Piotr could deflect them without harm, but Jimmy complicated matters. Their powers were useless and her arm was reminding her of that too as the cut bled down her elbow. It stung a little, more from the heat of the metal than from the actual scrape, which was still fairly deep. All in all though, it could have been much worse if Pete hadn't yanked her toward him and out of the direct line of the bullet, so Kitty closed her eyes against the pain, knowing she would have plenty of time to feel it later.

Closing her eyes turned out to be a bad idea, because it was hard to keep an eye on Piotr when both of them were closed. He was striding forward before Kitty could stop him and she had to throw her arms around his waist and dig her heels in before he stopped, more because she wanted him to than actually having been physically stopped by her tiny effort.

"Oh, so I hit a nerve," Multiple jabbed.

"Actually, no," Kitty said, purposefully taking his statement literally. "You missed any major arteries."

"Cute," he said sarcastically. "Maybe I should try again." He levelled the gun and Kitty saw Pete tense up. She knew if she didn't do something, he would be stupid and jump in front of her unprotected, so she dropped to the ground and rolled away, ignoring her screaming arm as the wound collected gravel and dirt. There was another gunshot, but Kitty didn't know how close it had been to her, if it had been aimed at her at all.

She heard a shout, not of pain, but of anger, and looked up. Multiple was clutching his hand and cursing; his gun had skittered away. Jimmy had apparently bitten him or something and was now running toward Kitty.

"Are you ok?" he asked, helping her to her feet. Kitty winced as Jimmy's hand brushed against her arm, but nodded anyway. "I need to get out of here so you guys can fight. I'll go -"

Kitty caught his arm before he could start leaving. "No way you're going anywhere alone. Pyro could have more people around."

"You can't fight if I'm here!" Jimmy argued. "You're already hurt!"

"I'm more worried about my pants than my arm at this point Jimmy," Kitty told him. It was true, her white capris were completely ruined by blood and dirt and the right side of her purple tanktop was stained a deeper purple from the blood. "I'll get you back to the school."

"What about Pete?"

Kitty looked over at her new boyfriend, who was in a stand-off with their would-be kidnapper. As soon as she got Jimmy out of range, Multiple could copy himself and give Pete a few dozen enemies to deal with. Kitty didn't want to leave him with those odds, but part of being an X-Man was relying on your teammates to do what they had to. Pete could power up too and be almost indestructable. A week ago, Kitty wouldn't have even had to make this decision. She would have left without question and trusted Pete to be ok by himself.

She just wasn't being logical now. The fact that Pete was her boyfriend didn't make him any less strong or competent, so the answer should have been the same. Kitty had to see the bigger picture here, beyond Piotr. Jimmy was part of that bigger picture. Bobby, Rogue, and Jubilee were too. The ice cream parlor could still have been on fire. These were all things Kitty needed to consider. They were things beyond the fact that she was in a relationship with Piotr. He was her boyfriend, but he wasn't the only thing in her life. She couldn't let everything fade to black around her with Pete at the center. That was more dangerous than anything.

"Let's go," Kitty said, grabbing Jimmy's hand for emphasis. "He can take care of himself."

xxx

Piotr saw Kitty drag Jimmy away and let out a little sigh of relief. For a second, he had been afraid she would stay and try to help him when her top priority was getting Jimmy to safety. Pete was also worried about her arm, which had looked like it was bleeding pretty badly and would probably get infected now that she'd gotten dirt in it. He understood why she had rolled away, of course, and couldn't really say he blamed her. She had been worried he would take the next bullet for her and if she ever asked him, he doubted if he could deny it. He was still worried about her arm though. It could have been worse if he hadn't pulled her away, but any wound on his Kitty gave him the right to pummel the man that gave it to her.

In this case, there was plenty for Pete to pummel. Five Jamie Madroxes suddenly blocked Piotr's view of Kitty's retreating form, each carrying an identical hand gun aimed at Piotr's chest. Behind him, nine more Jamies stood similarly equipped.

"I'll get the kid back, even if your little girl is in my way. Hope you two said goodbye."

xxx

Kitty whirled around as multiple gunshots rang out at once. Fear froze her in place and she wondered if she'd made the wrong choice. Maybe she should have stayed. X-Men were supposed to have eachother's backs and she had just left Pete's unprotected. What if that quick, uncertain glance at him was the last time she'd ever see him? What if, instead of a Phoenix statue, the school had to erect another headstone for Colossus? Kitty could visit the courtyard a week from now and see four graves instead of three.

Pain shot through her arm as Jimmy shook her to get her attention. "Kitty?"

She tried to muster a smile, but she knew the boy could see right through it. He let her pretend it looked real though, so she left it pasted there. "He's fine," Kitty said outloud, to assure herself of the fact more than Jimmy. "I'm sure he's fine."

"Kitty, let's go back," Jimmy said.

"We can't...I have to get you home. Storm'll never forgive me if I let you get captured over this."

"And what will she do if we leave Pete behind? Let's go back."

Kitty wasn't going to argue it further. She could have, but she really wanted to go back, so she just let Jimmy lead her back the way they'd come. From down the street she saw Piotr, in steel form, hurling a few Multiple Men off his back, but as they got closer the duplicates dwindled down to one badly battered original. Kitty was so happy to see that Pete did not look like a piece of swiss cheese that she sprinted the rest of the way down the street and wrapped her arms around his steel waist. When he was powered up, he was 7'5'', so even on tiptoe Kitty couldn't reach his lips with hers, but she tried anyway. He powered down and bent to meet her kiss while wrapping his arms around her with special consideration for her right arm.

When they broke apart and Kitty turned around, she found Jimmy sitting on their unconscious enemy grinning at them. "Do either one of you have rope or some handcuffs?" he asked innocently, not understanding the implications of bringing either of those objects on a date.

Piotr looked away uncomfortably and Kitty shook her head in amusement. "Sorry Jimmy, handcuffs didn't really go with my outfit," she joked.

"Oh, well what do we do with him then?" Jimmy asked, gesturing to his own personal bench.

"I don't know. He looks pretty out of it to me." Kitty twisted her head to look up at Pete. "What'd you do to him anyway?"

In answer, Piotr just wrapped his arm tighter around her shoulders and kissed the top of her head. Kitty could infer, from the bruises that were already forming on Multiple's face, that it hadn't been a peaceful chat about art and she was willing to leave it at that. They would have to have a talk later about how their relationship was going to affect their missions, but for now Kitty just leaned into Pete and took in the warm spring sunshine. She was feeling a little light headed from the blood loss, but managed to stay on her feet as long as Pete's arm was around her.

Bobby, Rogue, and Jubilee found them a few minutes later, looking slightly burnt, but altogether not broken. Bobby's face was streaked with soot and Rogue's left forearm was encased in ice to counteract a burn she'd gotten when she got too close to John. Jubilee looked worn out and her carefully curled hair had come out of its ponytail, but her face lit up when she saw that Jimmy was unharmed. While the two hugged happily, Kitty and Piotr wandered over to Bobby and Rogue.

"What happened to Pyro?" Kitty asked.

Bobby shot Rogue an accusing glare and muttered, "He got away."

"Oh, well...We got his accomplice," Kitty said lightly to draw attention away from whatever Rogue had done that allowed John to get away.

"Yeah, I see," Bobby said, letting his angry gaze travel to their battered captive. "I thought he was in jail."

Kitty shrugged. "I guess they nabbed a dupe by mistake. Jimmy narrowed him down though, so we've got the original. We just need to get him to jail before he wakes up."

"He won't get up for some time," Piotr said with a calm certainty that made Kitty shudder slightly.

"I still think he should be tied up," Jimmy interrupted as he and Jubilee walked over to join them. Looking at Bobby and Rogue, he repeated his question about handcuffs. Jubilee blushed for him and whispered something in his ear. Jimmy's eyes widened and he turned beet red and stuttered about not meaning that at all.

While Bobby sent Jubilee and Jimmy away so he could freeze Multiple Man's hands behind his back, Kitty rested her head on Piotr's chest and let him wrap a piece of his torn shirt around her arm. She closed her eyes against the pressure and when she opened them they were home.

"Did I fall asleep?" Kitty asked, propping herself up on her left elbow and looking around. They were back in the infirmary, but this time she was the one on the cot and Piotr was the one in the chair.

"Yes."

"I'm sorry."

"You were exhausted; there's nothing to be sorry about."

Kitty smiled tiredly. "Did you have fun?" she asked half-jokingly.

In answer, Piotr took her right hand in his left and with his other hand produced a triple scoop ice cream cone from behind his back. "I had fun, yes." He handed her the cone. "But I thought we'd finish the date first."

Kitty's smile got more energy behind it and she squeezed Pete's hand. He was a sweet guy; she had chosen well.

"Incoming!" Jubilee announced just seconds before strolling into the infirmary, trailing Jimmy, Bobby, and Rogue behind her.

"Um, hi guys," Kitty said.

Jubilee pulled up a chair. "Well don't look so shocked. You're finishing the date, aren't you? This _was_ a triple date, right?"

"We can leave..." Jimmy offered.

Kitty looked up at Piotr. They would have plenty of time to be alone, but for now they were going to be with their friends, enjoy their triple date, and eat their triple scoop cone.

---

A/N: Well, that's it. As always, thank you all for reading and/or reviewing!

--X


End file.
